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I'm building a TL9 Earth edge-of-the-stars campaign and I'm planning on a 'jump'-based model for FTL. The pseudo-theory behind it is that it works by the ship first approaching C by normal drives*, and then precipitating 'balast' from a massless energy-state to matter. This throws the vessel into a 'super-massive' state that thrusts it into 'subspace', i.e. space below/within the curvature of the universe.

The vessel in effect crosses a shorter distance than the distance between the two terminii of the jump. Better jump drives permit a sharper dive into subspace and thus a quicker trip. Better navigation determines how close to target the vessel emerges from subspace. (Edit: Also, I should add, the time in subspace varies with the distance between the terminii, but not in full proportion. Longer trips are relatively more efficient.)

I'm curious about:

(1) What plot, tech, play or whatever implications does anyone foresee from that paradigm, and

(2) What paradigms others use or have used for FTL in their space campaigns and how they worked out.


{*At TL9 I see it taking an acceleration of several months to get sufficiently close to C. Then TL10 (the local space standard) improvements, in the jump drive and normal drives both, bring that down to about a couple of weeks.}